# animate! › Films › Ferment by Tim Macmillan › direction & collaboration

Canonical: https://animate.org.uk/films/ferment/biography

Discovery terms: 1990s animation, time-slice photography, urban life, mortality, time, experimental short film, filmmaker, artist

The following is the archived page text; discovery terms above are separately sourced metadata.

Archive status: restored in 2026; historical calls, deadlines and services are closed.

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**Ferment** a film by Tim Macmillan

1999, 5 min

### Tim Macmillan

#### biography

Tim lives near Bath. He made [Ferment](https://animate.org.uk/films/ferment/) for animate! in 1999, using the [time-slice](http://www.timeslicefilms.com/cameras.shtml) image ‘freezing’ technique he developed at the Slade in the 1980’s (and which was subsequently adopted in **The Matrix**).

His gallery work [Dead Horse](http://www.timeslicefilms.com/projects/dead_horse.shtml) won, very unusually for moving image work, a [Citibank Photography Prize](http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2000/02/10/26551.html) nomination. It also attracted the wrath of animal rights fanatics who sent his family hypodermic needles in the post. **Animal Tragic** is a wry response.

Whilst making this film Tim was also busy inventing and developing [Flybot](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/3122530.stm) , an aerial robot to explore rainforest tree canopy which launched at the [Eden Project](http://www.edenproject.com/flybot) , Cornwall, in September 2003.

December 2003

### animate! films by this artist

[Animal Tragic](https://animate.org.uk/films/animaltragic/)

[Ferment](https://animate.org.uk/films/ferment/)

#### artist’s website

[Time-Slice Films](http://www.timeslicefilms.com/)

Tim’s production company

**Ferment** film, stills and other materials © Tim Macmillan 1999